Globe Community Heroes Awards: Education hero of the year

As we have continued to rebuild and recover from the coronavirus pandemic, the awards are given to honour those who have gone above and beyond in the last 20 months.

The awards will recognise the everyday heroes and those working in business, education and hospitality who have stepped up.

The second winner to be announced is for the category Education Hero which is sponsored by Suretax.

This award recognises an individual who works in the education sector, from governor to site manager and everyone in between.

They have provided outstanding support to pupils, demonstrated creativity to deliver learning and inspired youngsters and colleagues with their resilience and positivity.

We are delighted to announce that the winner of our second award is Emily Morris).

Emily (pictured, below), headteacher of Eastway Primary School in Moreton, went above and beyond for the community of Moreton.

Whether it was making sure struggling families had food, arranged food vouchers for free school meals and making sure family were able to get online by buying equipment and paid sim cards and much, much more.

One of those who nominated her wrote: "She was an absolute hero for the Eastway community. You could ask any of the Eastway family and staff, I'm sure they would all agree!"

Another nominator put: "Not only did she give clear and helpful advice to all families during the pandemic, she went above and beyond for all the pupils in her school.

"She made sure the children had all the equipment they needed to work from home, even buying iPads out of her own money.

"She made sure every family could feed their children with many food packs full of healthy nutritious meals, even delivering them herself.She set up a social supermarket in school stocked full of food where parents could go in and take what they needed to get through the week and still can.

"She made sure children were cared for during the pandemic and set up lots of fun days and holiday clubs for all to attend. Her and her staff are fantastic and truly deserve recognition."

On being named educational hero, Emily told the Globe this afternoon: "I am completely honoured and humbled to receive this award.

"The last 20 months have been incredibly challenging for everyone and I am so proud of how well the school and community have worked together.

"As a mum myself, I understand how difficult it was to have children at home during the pandemic, how anxious they were and how demanding it was to support remote learning.

"I just wanted to make sure that our families and children had everything they needed at this time including food, financial assistance, stationery, books, access to technology, support for emotional wellbeing and mental health and places in school where they needed them.

"We were lucky enough to have extra well-ventilated classrooms, additional staff and outdoor spaces to have had the majority of children in school during lockdown.

"Our amazing early years team worked throughout to make sure our youngest children did not miss out and in the second lockdown we were able to offer full time places for all our two and three year olds.

"No one could have predicted what would happen at the beginning of March 2020 and it was a time of heightened emotion and worry for everyone, I just wanted to make sure that all in our school community felt supported and loved from our staff, children, families and wider community.

"We have a number of families, who have vulnerabilities including many children with complex needs, it was vitally important to me that they didn’t feel abandoned or isolated when they couldn’t attend school.

"I always say that Eastway is much more than a school and this period of time was evidence of that.

"I accept this award on behalf of all my amazing staff who have been fully committed and dedicated to their role and duties, our children and families throughout, despite often having their own worries and difficult family circumstances.

"I truly love my job but I could never do it without all their hard work and unconditional care, I am in awe of them every day and could not ask for a better team.

"We are blessed to have such wonderful children, supportive families and an active and giving local community.

"We have been supported by the Governors of our school, Neo Community, Moreton Outreach, Moreton in Bloom, local businesses, church groups, charities and residents- it really has been and continues to be a community supporting its community!

Also Highly Commended in this category was Roger Cobain, site manager of the Jewel In The Crown at Co-op Academy Woodslee.

He welcomes every child and parent each morning. Children skip towards him and he lifts the morning moods and grumbles of many a family. During lockdown, Roger wrote and sang a song for the children.

Roger washes the school uniform for the uniform exchange, he spends time during his weekends as a site manager's job is never done.

His nominator wrote: "He is a credit to the school and epitomises the Co op values."

Congratulations to Emma – winner of our second Wirral Globe Community Hero of 2021. Also well done to Roger.

Tomorrow we will be announcing the winner of our Environmental Worker award.